July/2005: World Affairs - Sometimes the world is just too obvious to be tolerated. For example, as soon as Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope, the media jumped to downplay his past as a member of the Hitler Youth during World War 2, a fact that I jumped all over at this link. In the piece, I bitch about Ratzinger persecuting two old Nazi foes -- the Jewish and Homosexuality -- via religious pronouncements.

So to my utter non-surprise, what do I see in the media today?

Link: Vatican Denounces Some Israeli Retaliation


Oh please, help me not fall over! I am dying of the shock!

Now that I'm composed after this huge surprise, let's talk about exactly why I shouldn't have been surprised at all. Yes, not at all. It is simply unfortunate that I am so easily surprised. You, I'm sure, were not surprised by this. That’s probably because you saw the term...

HITLER YOUTH POPE

...and realized that yeah, maybe this old man in big hat might not be the best friend to the greatest country on the face of the planet. In retrospect, I should have realized it too.

Liberal-Catholic-who-understands-nothing: "But wait, Xavier, that's unfair. Maybe his position is correct and not a result of his intensive Nazi brainwashing while he was a youth, y'know, firing off anti-aircraft guns at the allies!" That's an interesting supposition, Liberal-Catholic-whom-I-just-invented. It’s time to break this down, as there really is no justification for his position.

Step one - Lack of mention of suicide-bombing
Someone especially jaded would probably look at that and say that it slipped his mind. Impossible. Suicide bombings in Israel are carried on every newscast in every part of the globe. In contrast, the terrorism in Turkey caused barely a ripple of coverage globally. In fact, most of you reading this probably had no idea that an attack happened in Turkey recently. For the Pope to reference lesser-known attacks while ignoring the evil act committed against Israel is no unintentional slight.

Step two - Lack of legitimate justification
The truly jaded among you will buy into the bullshit Vatican statement of...

"It's not always possible to immediately follow every attack against Israel with a public statement of condemnation, and for various reasons, among them the fact that the attacks against Israel sometimes were followed by immediate Israeli reactions not always compatible with the rules of international law."

...Bullshit, as I said. Not only is it bullshit, but it is myopic and insulting bullshit. Even if we were to believe that the Vatican's statement is genuine and they really are equating attacks against terrorism on an equal moral level as terrorist attacks... it's still bullshit even from that morally decayed and sickening statement. Why? How can I say this so confidently?

Simple.

Turkey, again.

Not only does the mention of the attack in Turkey reveal that the absence of the mention of the Israeli attack was utterly deliberate, it additionally proves that the Vatican's official explanation is a heaping pile of dung. For the Vatican explanation to be true, they have to equate government attacks against a displaced population on an equal "outrageous" level as the attacks of the displaced population on the government. If this is the Vatican's official policy, it would be sick and depraved, but at least it wouldn't be bullshit.

Turkey makes it bullshit. To sit and pretend that Turkey is not retaliating against the forces of the PKK, the Kurdish version of say, Hamas or Hezbollah, is positively idiotic. Turkey often carries out raids against the Kurds in Turkey, often targets Kurdish and PKK leaders such as Abdullah Ocalan for arrest, torture and imprisonment. Other leaders of the PKK are targeted for death... sound familiar?

Turkey denies Kurdish citizens equal rights under the law. The Kurds fighting are carrying on a campaign for a return of their homeland, Kurdistan. The attacks on the Turks by the Kurds are part of their campaign to pressure the Turks to give up parts of Turkish land in order to create a Kurdish homeland. Any of this sounding oh, vaguely familiar?

After each bombing by the Kurds, reprisals by the government follow. The Turkish government attempts to assassinate or round-up the terrorists who have struck at their country to advance the Kurdish political agenda. Bombings by the PKK and other groups often target civilians indiscriminately. Any of this ringing a bell for you?

That's right, the "plight of the Kurd" is no different than the "plight of the Palestinian." Displaced minorities seeking a homeland by any means necessary. Two governments, one Jewish and one Islamic, using whatever force necessary to try to limit or destroy the terrorist groups. There is absolutely no difference between the two. Even Libya leader Gaddafi has recognized this. He actually caused quite a row amongst the Arabs after pointing out the exact parallel between the Kurds and Palestinians. The other Arab leaders were shocked at such a statement, noting that the Kurds are non-Arab and the Jews, well, they're Jews!

Now if Moammar can note it...

Couldn't the Pope?

Yet there was the bomb, mentioning the "terrorist attack" against Turkey by what is assumed to be the PKK. Already, reprisals have occurred against the Kurd. You don't see the Vatican noting that such a response is equal in horror to the terrorism while leaving the Kurdish attacks as unmentionable. No, the Pope goes ahead and mentions the Turkish deaths even though their response does as well, violate international law in various respects.

So, I've already dealt with the possibility of the Pope not knowing about it. And I've already illustrated how the Pope mentioned a perfectly analogous situation while refusing to express his sympathy towards the Jewish victims of the Islamic attack... gee, I wonder why he would refuse to mention the Jewish one while expressing his sympathy to the Turks?

I mean, it couldn't be that the Israeli's are Jewish, could it?

I'm not Jewish. I'm an Atheist American. However, when I check out international news, I am constantly shocked by the anti-Israeli bias in the media. It's sickening. To see the Pope's blatant anti-Semitism be ignored in this situation is just a continuation on the white-washing of this Pope's record. Ratzinger was a willing member of the Hitler Youth. He was in areas where Jews were being persecuted. He fought against allied forces during World War 2. He has consistently spoken out against the Jewish faith in his service to the Catholic church.

And I would be incredibly remiss to not mention the complicit and damning role the church played in the aftermath of World War 2. War criminals and Jew-murderers were given much safe refuge in Catholic sanctuaries across Europe, with a major transit point being the Vatican itself. The Church itself funded escape routes to South America for fleeing German Nazi's during that time. Kind of makes the election of a Nazi pope all the more frightening, doesn't it?

Now, only a few months after his election to the papacy, Ratzinger is already treating the Jews as subhuman scum. While it's perfectly fine for the Arab to retaliate against the non-Arab in Turkey, the Vatican has released this senseless proclamation that the fight against terrorists by Israel is exactly as condemnable as the attacks against Israeli citizens by Palestinian suicide-bombers. That's the official position of the Vatican under Ratzinger, the Hitler Youth Pope.

There is no justification for the Vatican's position. Worse, there are no other explanations other than anti-Semitism. The world grows even darker against the oft-persecuted Jew. A Nazi wears the hat of the Pontiff, Arabs surround them and much of the world refuses to view Hezbollah and Hamas as disgusting terrorist groups. Why? Because rather than kill Turks, or Britons, deaths that would be condemnable... the Palestinian groups only kill Jews... and apparently that's okay because the Jews dare fight back against such acts of wanton disgusting evil.

I submit that Joseph Ratzinger is no different today than what he was sixty years ago. He's a dirty fucking Nazi. He's using his position as Pope to practice anti-Semitism in a far less overt way than years past. Yet, is there really that much of a difference between a Pope that defends the killing of Jews and a Hitler Youth Soldier who raised no objection to the same practice during the dark days of World War 2?

No. There is no philosophical difference.

Though in reality, the situation of a Pope condoning the slaughter of Jewish civilians certainly has more impact upon the world than the anti-Jew apathy of a young Nazi named Joe. The uniform may have changed, but the old colors remain the same underneath. The old prejudices exist unchanged. With this Pope, the only good Jew is a dead Jew... with this Pope, the Israeli has no right of self-defense... with this Pope not much has changed in the last sixty years.

We live in a world where a dictator named Gaddafi has more intellectual integrity on world affairs than the Pope. The leader of Libya is fairer to the Israeli's than the leader of the Vatican.

If you didn't shudder at that, you're not paying attention.